How to create and share Zendesk Explore report links

Sharing your support data shouldn't require a computer science degree. Yet many Zendesk users find themselves digging through help docs just to send a simple dashboard link to their team or a stakeholder. This guide cuts through the confusion and shows you exactly how to share Zendesk Explore dashboards, whether you're sending them to colleagues inside your organization or creating public links for external viewers.

If you're looking for more advanced ways to work with your Zendesk data, our guide on Zendesk Explore filters and audience sharing covers additional customization options.

What you'll need to get started

Before you start sharing dashboards, make sure you have the right setup. The sharing options available to you depend entirely on your Zendesk plan and user role.

Plan requirements matter. Internal sharing (sending dashboards to other Zendesk users) requires at least a Professional plan. External sharing (creating public links for people without Zendesk accounts) is only available on Enterprise or Enterprise Plus plans with Explore Enterprise.

Your user role determines what you can do. Admins can share any dashboard and manage sharing permissions across the account. Editors can share dashboards they've created or cloned. Viewers can only view dashboards shared with them. If you don't see sharing options, check your role in the Zendesk Admin Center.

Know what you're sharing. Dashboards and reports are different things in Zendesk Explore. A report is a single visualization (like a chart or table). A dashboard is a collection of reports, filters, and widgets arranged on a page. You share dashboards, not individual reports. If you want to share just one report, you'll need to create a dashboard containing only that report.

Sharing dashboards with your Zendesk team

Internal sharing is the most common use case. You're sending a dashboard to colleagues who already have Zendesk accounts, whether that's your support team, managers, or executives who need visibility into support metrics.

Step 1: Open your dashboard and access sharing options

Start by navigating to the dashboard you want to share. You can either open the dashboard directly or find it in your dashboards library. Once you're viewing the dashboard, look for the Share button in the top-right corner of the screen. Alternatively, if you're in the dashboards library, click the Settings icon next to the dashboard name and select Share.

Important: You can only share dashboards you've created or cloned. Default Zendesk dashboards cannot be shared directly. If you need to share a default dashboard, clone it first, then share the clone.

Step 2: Select users and groups to share with

The Invite people dialog opens, showing all users and groups in your Zendesk account. You can search for specific individuals or select entire groups. When you hover over a group name, you'll see up to 20 members displayed alphabetically. This helps you confirm you're sharing with the right people.

Set dashboard restrictions carefully. For each recipient, you can apply restrictions that limit what data they see. For example, you might restrict a team lead to see only their group's tickets. Keep in mind that users with Limited viewer or Limited editor permissions may see data outside their normal permissions when viewing a shared dashboard.

End users (your customers) won't appear in the invite list. If you need to share with customers or external stakeholders, you'll need to use external sharing links instead.

Step 3: Publish your dashboard changes

Here's where people often get stuck. Making changes to a dashboard doesn't automatically update what shared viewers see. After you edit a dashboard or any report on it, you must click Publish changes for those updates to reach your audience.

To publish, open the dashboard in edit mode and click the Publish changes button. The next time your recipients view the dashboard, they'll see the latest version. If you don't publish, they'll continue seeing the old version until you do.

Creating public links for external sharing

Sometimes you need to share dashboards with people who don't have Zendesk accounts. Maybe it's an executive who only needs occasional visibility, a client who wants to see support metrics, or a wall-mounted TV displaying team performance. External sharing links make this possible.

Enable external link sharing in admin settings

Before anyone can create external links, an admin must enable the feature. In Explore, click the Settings icon in the left sidebar, then select the Sharing tab. Turn on the Public links to dashboards setting and click Save.

This is an account-wide setting. Once enabled, any editor or admin can create external links. There's no way to restrict external sharing to specific dashboards or users. Every dashboard in your account becomes shareable externally, so make sure your team understands the security implications.

Generate a secure external link

With external sharing enabled, open any dashboard and click Share, then select Get link. The Get link page opens. Click Create link to start the process.

On the Create link page, you'll configure:

• Access type: Apply any dashboard restrictions you want viewers to have
• Password protection: Enable this and set a strong password (highly recommended)

Click Create link when you're done. The Get link page displays your new public URL. You can copy this link and share it via email, Slack, or embed it in other tools.

Password requirements and security settings

External links can be accessed by anyone on the internet who has the URL. Password protection is strongly recommended. Zendesk requires passwords to have:

• At least 10 characters
• 1 uppercase letter
• 1 lowercase letter
• 1 number
• 1 symbol

Save the password somewhere secure. Once you create the link, you cannot retrieve the password from Zendesk. If you lose it, you'll need to reset or delete the link and create a new one.

IP restrictions still apply. If your Zendesk account has IP restrictions configured, external links will only work from allowed IP addresses. This adds a layer of security but can confuse external viewers who try to access the link from home or another location.

Managing and revoking shared dashboard access

Sharing dashboards isn't a one-time task. You need to manage who has access and revoke permissions when people change roles or leave the organization.

Viewing current access. From the dashboards library, click the Settings icon next to any dashboard you've shared. The sharing dialog shows everyone who currently has access, including both individual users and groups.

Revoking internal access. To stop sharing with someone, click the options icon next to their name and select Revoke access. They'll immediately lose access to the dashboard. If you revoke access from an admin, they can still see the dashboard on the All tab of the library, but it will disappear from their Shared with me tab.

Managing external links. From the Get link page, you can reset the password, remove password protection (not recommended), or delete the link entirely. Deleting a link immediately breaks it for anyone trying to access it. There's no way to see how many people have viewed an external link or who they are.

Best practice: Audit your shared dashboards quarterly. Remove access for people who no longer need it, and delete external links that are no longer active. This reduces your security exposure and keeps your data accessible only to those who should have it.

Security considerations for shared dashboards

Sharing dashboards means sharing data. Before you send that link, consider what you're exposing and who might see it.

External viewers see everything on the dashboard. When you share externally, all data returned by the dashboard is visible to viewers. Dashboard restrictions apply, but users with Limited viewer or Limited editor permissions will see data outside their normal permissions. Don't share dashboards containing sensitive information externally.

Public links can be forwarded. Anyone with the link can share it with others. There's no way to restrict who can access the link once it's created. If you need to share with specific external parties, consider whether granting them limited Zendesk access might be safer than using a public link.

No audit trail for external views. Unlike internal sharing, external links don't log who viewed them or when. If compliance or security auditing is important to your organization, external sharing may not meet your requirements. As one Zendesk community member noted, the inability to see who accessed externally shared dashboards is a significant limitation for security-conscious organizations.

PII and sensitive data. Never share dashboards containing personally identifiable information (customer names, emails, phone numbers) via public links. Even with password protection, the data is exposed to anyone who obtains the link. Internal sharing is safer for PII because you control exactly who has Zendesk access.

Troubleshooting common sharing issues

Even with clear instructions, things sometimes don't work as expected. Here are the most common problems and how to fix them.

"I don't see the Share button." This usually means one of three things: you don't have the right plan (you need Professional or higher for internal sharing, Enterprise for external), you don't have editor or admin permissions (viewers can't share), or you're trying to share a default Zendesk dashboard (clone it first).

"My external link isn't working." Check your IP restrictions first. If your Zendesk account limits access to specific IP ranges, external viewers must be on those networks. Also verify the password is being entered correctly, passwords are case-sensitive and must meet all complexity requirements.

"Recipients can't see my updates." You probably forgot to publish. Editing a dashboard doesn't automatically update what shared viewers see. You must click Publish changes after making edits. This is the most common source of confusion for new Zendesk Explore users.

"Dashboard restrictions aren't working." Remember that external viewers bypass some permission checks. Users with Limited viewer or Limited editor roles in your Zendesk account can see data outside their permissions when viewing externally shared dashboards. This is by design in Zendesk, but it surprises many administrators.

Getting more from your Zendesk analytics

Sharing dashboards is just the beginning of what you can do with your support data. While Zendesk Explore gives you visibility into what happened, understanding why it happened and what to do about it requires a different approach.

This is where eesel AI can help. Our AI agent for Zendesk doesn't just show you historical data, it actively works within your help desk to handle tickets, draft responses, and identify patterns in real-time. Instead of sharing dashboards that show last week's ticket volume, you can have an AI teammate that helps reduce that volume by resolving common issues automatically.

Dashboards tell you what happened. AI agents help you change what happens next. If you're spending more time sharing reports than acting on them, it might be time to consider a more proactive approach to support operations.